When my older children were young we decided to omit certain words from our family vocabulary. Words like "stupid" and "shut-up" we felt weren't respectful of each other and shouldn't be used toward each other.

On one particular day I was frustrated with something and called it "stupid". Oh man, my children were indignant. They didn't differentiate between things and people and were convinced that my behavior didn't match up with our established expectations. And when they went to church the following Sunday they reported my bad behavior to their teachers - "my mom said the 's' word!"

Luckily for me, I learned to control those words, even toward things, and their trust in me was restored. Though this may be minor on the scale of moral mishaps the idea of hypocrisy can be very destructive. Before we continue I like to define the critical words in the conversation so that we start out on the same terminology page, so to speak.

To sum up, hypocrisy is practiced pretense. At times kids, teens in particular, have a real problem with their parents because of this practiced pretense or hypocrisy. Parents who don't act as they preach fall into this parent trap. The integrity trip-up, hypocrisy. And teens hate hypocrites! It doesn't have to be "major" deviations from professed piousness, minor detours will accomplish parental captivity. For those of religious belief, we automatically set ourselves up. We are preachers of something and when we fail at what we teach we are by definition hypocrites.

Parent Trap: Integrity Trip-up - Hypocrisy

On the other hand, there are many in popular culture who win approval of children for the very reason that they don't preach anything and therefore are never hypocrites. When they fail big time from the normal publicly approved standards they are easily forgiven for the fact that they never professed any allegiance to a moral compass.

Parent Reality:Having moments of character contrary behavior is one thing, it's called being human and making mistakes. Make corrections.

The real problem for parents is never correcting and being released from the trap of hypocrisy. Living in a continual rhythm of righteous declarations while demonstrating regular conflicting deeds are mistakes that erode the relationship. For parents who love their children this is unacceptable.

When kids are critical of this behavior it is a call to action. The wonderful thing about children is that they are forgiving, especially when there are sincere efforts on the part of the offender. It is not a failing to act the hypocrite it is a failing to remain a hypocrite. It may take time but the relationship can be repaired. The best path is to recognize the deception and avoid it. But, if you fall into this parent trap here are a few suggestions to escape its clutch.

CHECKLIST FOR CHANGE

• discover the contrary hypocritical behavior to be changed• determine that the offense is worth the efforts to change it• dedicate yourself to living in harmony to your code of conduct• declare your intentions of working to improve a behavior to others• draw on the goodness in you, in others and the love of family• devote your best energies to rectify your reputation• don't underestimate the power of your example